However much or little Stephen Reynard might have been to blame in
his marriage, the patient man now almost deserved to be pitied.
First Betty's skittishness; now her mother's remorseful volte-face:
it was enough to exasperate anybody; and he wrote to the widow in a
tone which led to a little coolness between those hitherto firm
friends. However, knowing that he had a wife not to claim but to
win, and that young Phelipson had been packed off to sea by his
parents, Stephen was complaisant to a degree, returning to London,
and holding quite aloof from Betty and her mother, who remained for
the present in the country. In town he had a mild visitation of the
distemper he had taken from Betty, and in writing to her he took
care not to dwell upon its mildness. It was now that Betty began to
pity him for what she had inflicted upon him by the kiss, and her
correspondence acquired a distinct flavour of kindness
thenceforward.

Owing to his rebuffs, Reynard had grown to be truly in love with
Betty in his mild, placid, durable way--in that way which perhaps,
upon the whole, tends most generally to the woman's comfort under
the institution of marriage, if not particularly to her ecstasy.
Mrs. Dornell's exaggeration of her husband's wish for delay in their
living together was inconvenient, but he would not openly infringe
it. He wrote tenderly to Betty, and soon announced that he had a
little surprise in store for her. The secret was that the King had
been graciously pleased to inform him privately, through a relation,
that His Majesty was about to offer him a Barony. Would she like
the title to be Ivell? Moreover, he had reason for knowing that in
a few years the dignity would be raised to that of an Earl, for
which creation he thought the title of Wessex would be eminently